1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a thermal transfer type of printer in which the printing is carried out by heating an ink ribbon coated with a heat fusible ink layer to transfer the ink onto a recording paper.
2. Description of Prior Art
The above-mentioned type of printer is well known in the art. For the thermal transfer printer there is often used a reeled ink ribbon. In this case, the ink ribbon is fed from a supply reel and the length of the ink ribbon consumed per line is determined solely by the length of the line from the first printed character to the last one in the line. The feed of ink ribbon is continued even for any short or long blank portion present between characters in the line. An amount of ink ribbon determined by the length of a line is always consumed irrespective as to whether or not the line contains any blank portion (space) between characters. Since the portion of ink ribbon which is fed during the time of a blank is never used to print, the portion of ink ribbon for the blank portion of a line means mere waste of ink ribbon. The amount of ink ribbon wasted in the conventional thermal transfer printer has never been small.